Bestiary

Every ragged band stands its loudest thug on a barrel and calls him captain. This one has a barrel AND a plan.

Meadow Peace or no, some folk would rather take a loaf than bake one. The palisade watch calls them 'practice.'

A meadow wolf with a burr-tangled coat and no fear it can remember. First blood for most valley adventurers - usually theirs.

Where one rat digs, forty follow. The Almanac lists her den locations strictly 'for avoidance purposes.'

A gnarlkin - the feral cousins that respectable goblins refuse to acknowledge at parties. Steals anything shinier than mud.

Longer than a wagon and patient as winter. The fang marks heal. The embarrassment lingers.

Something orders the raiders through. When an overlord steps out itself, the rift is not a raid - it is a claim.

It steps through where the Weave runs thin, wearing armor no forge here remembers making.

The seam-lights come first, then the smell of struck flint, then this. Close the rift. Ask questions never.

It creeps in where the Weave wears thin, all needle and hinge. The Almanac's artist declined a second sitting.

Born in the space between here and wasn't. It skitters along the world's seams like a finger tracing a scar.

It hums at the exact pitch of a rift about to open. Oskar's string-map has a nail for every place the humming stopped.

Limbs like shears, purpose like a loom running backwards. What it cuts does not always stay cut.

Mostly mouth, remainder momentum. It does not eat what it swallows. Nobody has established what it does instead.

It walks on threads of somewhere else. The webs it leaves point wrong on every map, which delights Ines and no one else.

Armor grown on geometry this world declines to support. Haldan examined a shed plate for an hour and then quietly went to the shrine.

Too large for the rifts it comes through - and it comes through anyway. The doorway's opinion is not consulted.

The wound is ordinary. The venom is a location. Amunet treats it with poultices and absolutely no follow-up questions.

It swims the gaps between moments of the world. Watch the air ripple, then the ground, then - preferably from elsewhere - it.

The Hollow Between wears many shapes badly. This one it wears almost well. Close the rift before it finishes dressing.

The horrors have an order, and it comes last. When the Last Shape steps through, the rift is not failing. It is finishing.

The dunes do their own embalming, badly. Kherep calls them 'unfinished paperwork' and reaches for the ritual knife.

Buried with every honor and still dissatisfied. Its true name is safe in its tomb. Its temper is not.

It swore to guard the vault for eternity. Eternity is going long. The oath does not care that the treasury moved.

Its sting cools into glass the color of sunset. Grix pays well for the glass. Grix pays other people to collect it.

It suns itself on the dark rings and meets every traveler's eye. The obelisk field has more statues than the records justify.

The Fourth Dynasty is not discussed. The Fourth Dynasty does, unfortunately, still discuss you.

She was beautiful, they say, before the crown of serpents. Ankhesen leaves offerings at a respectful distance and files the paperwork as 'weather.'

Topiary given appetite. The Gardeners insist the shaping was 'mostly on purpose.'

Past pruning, past apology. It remembers being decorative the way a flood remembers being rain.

Where the maze frays, the green forgets its shape and keeps its strength. Do not let the creaking fool you. It is fast.

The maze's oldest resident refuses every shear, every thread, every treaty. Yew speaks of it quietly - which is how you know.

It wandered out of some unremembered war and grew a skin of moss and bad intentions. Kherep would like it buried properly. It disagrees.

Older than the Taking, probably; grumpier than anyone needs to be, certainly. Offerings of honey are being researched. Results pending.

It roosts in the palewood hollows and files complaints about lanterns. Wick refuses to light the two westernmost lamps. Wick is correct.

Too tall to be a rat, too rat to be anything else. Cellar doors in the west valley are barred from the outside now. Nobody discusses why.

The forest keeps its own watch. On moonless nights it patrols on two legs and recognizes no jurisdiction.

A boar's temper in a shape that opens gates. The Quarrel Years' worst duels ended cleaner than an argument with a Boargrim.

Her silk is worth a fortune and her patience is worth more. Ottilie pays handsomely for the thread. Collection remains an open position.

A black dog on the path at dusk means turn back. The Almanac is legally obligated to note that it also means run.

Sleeps as a boulder, wakes as an argument. The west road bends around its favorite bridge for a reason.

Claims a title from a court no surviving map can place. Impeccable manners, right up until the manners stop.

Not a werebear - a BEARWERE. The distinction matters enormously to it, and you will have time to consider the difference while running.

The deep weald's oldest warning, given legs. It is always lean. It is never done. Sigrun plants rowan on the paths it favors.

The Uncounted, counting themselves back in. Bulwark Nine's funerals are recyclings; these are the returns department.

The old war grew soldiers in vats, then lost the war and the recipe. The vats kept cooking.

Stitched from three survival strategies, none of them compatible. The howl is the only part that agrees with itself.

Kwan's cordon holds because of sergeants and signage. The Cordon Breaker can read. It is not persuaded.

Whatever settles in the arcology sumps, settles together. Doc Ferrier's advice is spirited and unprintable.

A machine-mind that defected from the defectors. Theo mourns each one by serial number and asks that you make it quick.

Waste nothing, says the Reach. The Recycler agrees with the doctrine. The Recycler IS the doctrine, unsupervised.

'The Court''s clerks: small, spiteful, and billing you for the fire damage they cause. Kill them before they file.'

It tracks by the warmth of a guilty conscience, which - per the Court - is everyone. The trail it leaves seeds the next fire.

Armor of verdict-iron, blade of standing sentence. It does not duel. It executes, in both senses, in that order.

Every court needs its instrument. This one sharpened itself. Ygrid has formally requested first swing, in writing.

Middle management of the Ashen Court. Delegates the burning, supervises the screaming, files the ashes by surname.

It reads the proclamation before the fire arrives. Scholars note the proclamations are getting longer. And closer.

The gavel-hand of a tribunal older than the Taking. It does not want the dimension destroyed. It wants it SENTENCED. (The distinction is not an improvement.)

Rides the highland gales screaming songs nobody requested. Steals lunches, buttons, and - once, famously - a wig.

One eye, one club, one very simple philosophy. The high passes are littered with those who stopped to debate it.

Stone that walked out of the Broken Fell with frost in its veins. Dain will not look at one; every block is masonry from home.

It held a post on some unremembered wall until the wall stopped existing. It still holds the post. The post is wherever it says.

Ruta once tried to broker a mount contract. The griffin kept the down payment and the negotiator's hat.

The ridgeline's apex tenant. Files no flight plans, honors no treaties, eats the evidence.

Shy, enormous, and violently protective of a snowfield nobody else wants. The Almanac respects boundaries. Be like the Almanac.

Ansgar swears its grandmother threw a mountain at his grandfather. The troll neither confirms nor denies. The mountain declined comment.

Old enough to be a rumor twice over. The Fells' shepherds leave it a share of every flock and call the arrangement taxes.

Lion, goat and serpent in permanent committee. Like all committees it agrees on exactly one thing, and that thing is you.

The mountain's crown and the mountain's temper. When Ashwing flies, Torva rings the storm-bell and means it.

Ashwing's rival across the high passes. On still nights the peaks trade roars like border correspondence, and the valley checks its insurance.

Five heads, one grudge, and the river's source under its coils. Cut one argument off and two grow back. Bring friends. Bring a will.